Warpals - Civ: Beyond Earth's Rising Tide Diplomacy Fix

When our Alec told us wot he thinks about the Rising Tide expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth [official site], he grumbled about a nasty bug in its overhauled diplomacy system – a very playground bug. When you declared war on someone, your allies might not back you up. “Yeah, go on, I’ve got your back,” they’d say, “go on, ‘it ‘im!” Then you’d ‘it ‘im. Then your pals would turn their backs and start whistling as a Siege Worm thundered towards you.

Developers Firaxis explain the problem and the stipulations of the fix:

“Previously, there were some cases where a player would go to war, but their allies would not join them in the fight.

“Now, when a player declares war, all the player’s allies will also declare war on the target. If you are at war, and then you form an alliance with a faction that has not yet met your opponent, your new ally will not join the war automatically, since they don’t have prior diplomatic contact. This change will not apply to existing save games with an active war or alliance, but will apply to all games going forward.”

The patch should automatically download on Steam.

Alec was a bit lukewarm on Rising Tide, recommending folks steer clear at least until patches fixed the wonky diplomacy. That wasn’t its only shortcoming, mind, and the expansion isn’t cheap at £25. Alec’s on holiday this week so he shan’t be sharing new thoughts, but perhaps he’ll return to Rising Tide and tell us what he thinks now diplomacy less wonked.

Am I putting him up to something, volunteering him to wrestle with the game then report back to you, while I plan to scarper when things get real? Who could say.